My Korean resources

Here’s the Korean equivalent for my Swedish resources and my Norwegian resources, in order from most to least used and helpful:

  • Memrise: Used all the time during any stage of learning Korean, or any other language, for that matter. Using Memrise is like using flashcards, but a lot more beneficial since it utilizes not just repetition, but spaced repetition. That means it checks how long ago you learned a word and reminds you to revisit the word at a time when you’re most likely to be about to forget it. It often has (user-created!) mnemonic devices to help aid the recall process even further. I wholeheartedly recommend Memrise to anyone who’s learning any language. You can even create your own deck to help other users practice! In fact, here’s the deck my friend made to coincide with what you learn from Korean Made Simple, which I’ll talk about in a few bullets.
  • Dongsa: The Android and iOS versions are the equivalent of its website. It’s an incredibly useful site like Verbix (though Verbix has the Romanizations on the main page if that’s important to you, and also has far more languages available), and can be used on the go to type in an unfamiliar infinitive verb and have it conjugated for you, even if it’s irregular! One thing that Dongsa does have over Verbix is that, since it focuses solely on Korean, when you click on a conjugation, it tells you why the verb is conjugated that way! The value of this can’t be underestimated, of course.
  • Talk to Me in Korean podcast: Used from the very beginning. They have beginner and intermediate lessons, and their content is quite good! Their podcast is very helpful but also sometimes 10-20 minutes long, much of which is very fluffed up with lots of English conversation between the teachers. Now, though it is extremely helpful, I must say that, depending on how familiar you are with learning languages, it’s sometimes much faster to download their lesson .pdfs and learn them on your own, or maybe just fast-forward through the podcast past the fluff. Besides this, though, I definitely recommend the TTMIK community, as they’re a lovely and helpful bunch of people and will answer any Korean language or cultural questions you have!
  • Korean Made Simple: Great resource to teach incredibly useful vocabulary and grammar construction. This can be used from the beginning, and was made by a guy who learned Korean himself, so is quite familiar with the process of learning Korean.
  • LingQ: Used to start learning words, though given the occasional irregularities in Korean spacing of words, it can sometimes be less useful than for other languages. However, this can be used from the very beginning! LingQ is a fantastic site that allows you to hover your cursor over words in their different language lessons and stories and see the meaning. When you feel comfortable with a word, you mark it as known and move on. This is also the tool that gives me those nifty, auto-updated language badges on the right sidebar.

  • Google Translate: Used all-the-freaking-time to define single words. Here’s how it normally works for me: I see a word in LingQ or hear a word in a podcast, and then look it up via Google Translate if I intuit how it’s spelled. I hardly ever use Google Translate for translating phrases, because if you give it more than one word, it often messes up. For best results, translate FROM your target language INTO English, as Google Translate tends to have a better grasp on English than some of the other languages. It’s also decent enough to use vice-versa, but I don’t trust its English-to-Korean translation as much as the reverse (and for good reason, as Naver Translate is often a better option than Google for Korean specifically, just like Dongsa vs. Verbix). Remember, in the beginning, when translating something from English to your target language in Google Translate, don’t use ambiguous sentences that can be translated in multiple different ways; try to stick to simple sentences until you can tell when Google Translate is wrong, at which point you can feed it more complex things.
  • K-dramas: Specifically KoreanDrama.tv because it works in Korea, too. Used after I learn some initial vocabulary so I can then listen for the words I’ve just learned. This serves as my “listening to natives” practice when I’m not currently speaking to Koreans or Korean learners. Listening to a podcast or watching a show in your target language isn’t always beneficial for learning words if you have no beginning vocabulary; the key to really getting it to work is if you know a few words so you can figure out the words next to them. What listening can do if you don’t have starting vocabulary, however, is get you used to how they speak. I was surprised to find out in person that Koreans do actually talk the way they do in k-dramas. This is part of why I say Koreans sound a bit overdramatic.
  • Translated.net: ExTREMEly useful. Why? Because you type a word in and this site gives you tons of example sentences with that word so you can see the different contexts in which it can be used. One of my favorites.

Once again, if you have any fantastic resources that work for you, feel free to mention them, but these eight in conjunction work extremely well for me!

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